


bloom fully on the tall wall

by againstmygreeleaf



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, 結城友奈は勇者である | Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de aru | Yuki Yuna is a Hero
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Internal Conflict, Mild Blood, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 16:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12751869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/againstmygreeleaf/pseuds/againstmygreeleaf
Summary: Homura awakens gasping in the strangest witch's labyrinth she's been in yet. There are pastel roots and vines twisting all over, the sky above as violet as her own irises. It's actually tame in comparison to the design of many of the labyrinths she's seen. Witch's labyrinths are supposed to have themes. Each one embodies the despair of the fallen girl by recreating a distorted version of things specific to her.There is nothing distinct about this place, nothing personal. There is no theme, there are only colors. Something is off.//re-posted.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a mash of translated lyrics from Hoshi to Hana and Magia because I can't title anything to save my life. I think I'm experimenting more with crossovers than anything. I like crossovers but i'm never sure how to go about them as far as merging verses...and YuYuYu and PMMM have enough similarities to make that first step easier on me.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure the exact date of YuYuYu. I do know that it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and the prequel, NoWaYu takes place several centuries before that around our modern time while the main PMMM timeline would've been several years before. 
> 
> I had this fic on my older AO3 account before and one reviewer kindly explained the timeline to me, but unfortunately my dumb butt deleted the older posting before I could put their explanation in the notes. Why bother moving this fic to a different account at all? 
> 
> Well, because I already had PMMM fics posted on this account so I thought this work would belong here more than on my other one.

Homura goes flying from the blast of Walpurgisnacht's wrath, narrowly avoiding being impaled on a spike of debris. She crashes to the ground in a tangle of limbs, some teeth knocked out as she gets a mouthful of concrete. Blood washes hot and metallic over her tongue. A cry of pain leaps past her lips. Her shield crackles on her arm and she knows that this is _not good_. 

'Why can't I beat it?'

She laments to herself helplessly, desperation and anger with a fatigued flavor heavy in her chest. 

'Why is it always like this?' 

Homura raises her shield and winces as another concerning spark dances around it like a miniature lightning bolt. Before the sand runs out, she attempts to restart the timeline. She feels the shift, the whoosh of antimatter and the flash of seconds retracting at the speed of light. Every time it makes her nauseous. Nonetheless, there's a ghost of relief in that it's still working. 

Except it's not. 

Homura doesn't wake up in the hospital. She finds herself staring at herself where it all started, hair in braids as she sobs over Madoka's bloodied corpse. Kyuubey looms, tail swishing. Homura gapes at the past, baffled beyond belief as she drops to her knees. The worst memory she has plays out again on a real-time stage, the former reality as vivid as it was over seventy loops ago. 

Homura finds herself crying out in unison with the quondam her. That Homura doesn't notice her, unaware. But something happens, something even more bizarre than ending up here again at all. There is a meld. She feels something intrinsic that now resides in the pit of her soul gem merge with that of the mourning her several lengths away. Their heartbeats synchronize and their essences stitch. 

"I wish it wasn't like this!" Past(?) Homura shrieks with a burden fished right out of the Current(?)'s subconsciousness. "I wish I didn't live in this world where I'm too helpless to do anything but watch her die!" 

Kyuubey looks right through the quondam Homura, its sickeningly cute eyes boring through the one with a broken shield. 

'This is a highly puzzling abnormality,' it declares telepathically. 

Everything goes black. 

* * *

 

Homura awakens gasping in the strangest witch's labyrinth she's been in yet. There are pastel roots and vines twisting all over, the sky above as violet as her own irises. It's actually tame in comparison to the design of many of the labyrinths she's seen. It is downright plain in contrast to the cakes and candies and syringes that dominated Charlotte's sugarcoated horror realm. 

Actually, that's why Homura feels so out of sorts. Witch's labyrinths have themes. Each one embodies the despair of the fallen girl by recreating a distorted version of things specific to her. There is nothing distinct about this place. There is nothing personal. There is no theme, there are only colors. Something is off. Homura sits up slowly and swallows as she takes in her unsettling surroundings. 

Fear runs icy through her veins. It's a brand of fright she's unfamiliar with, and unfamiliarity itself is something she too fears. Homura has been repeating the same month over and over again so long she can barely remember anything before it. She knows every outcome, every moment, every place, and every single fucking thing there is to expect at all times. 

She's done it before, seen it before, fought it before. It's an endless repetition and she knows every minute inside and out. Unfamiliarity is practically a foreign concept to her now.The unknown is ultimately even more terrifying than failure because failure, oh failure, she is intimate with. She can retract that with the swivel of the shield on her arm. 

Except there is no shield on her arm. Homura squawks at the realization and springs to her feet. She spins around, gaze wild with desperation. 

Did it get knocked off somehow!?

Where is it!? 

She then catches a glimpse of naked skin on the top of her left hand. Homura freezes. She stretches her arm out in front of her and stares hard at her hand, eyes widening. Her soul gem is gone. 

She's still transformed. Her outfit is proof of that. Her healed mouth supports it. Her soul gem should be imbedded in her hand. Her time-shield should be on her arm. Never, ever has she been inside this labyrinth. This is pure insanity. Raw animal panic possess Homura like a demon. 

She screams. She screams until she's breathless, throat scraped from the volume and legs trembling. 

"There's another girl here!" 

Homura startles at the voice of another and whips around to see someone perched atop an arch of watercolor vines. The stranger speaks into a cell phone, her sea-green eyes narrowed at Homura. She must be a magical girl. Her outfit is fantastical and ribboned, this kind of blue and white battle suit with feminine accents. 

"I don't know, I've never seen her before." The girl lowers the phone and jumps down to Homura— No, she doesn't _jump_.

Her legs are thin and evidently immobilized. Four long hair ribbons facilitate her movement. They propel her down and hold her up like springs. Ribbons so strong irresistibly remind Homura of Tomoe Mami. 

"Are you okay?" she asks Homura. 

Homura studies the girl closely, searching for a soul gem. She has to be a magical girl to be wearing that and in the labyrinth like this. She has to have a soul gem. But she doesn't, at least not that Homura can see. 

"Where am I!?" Homura demands. "What witch is doing this?" 

"Witch?" The girl's face crumples in confusion. 

Something in the distance crackles and there's an explosion a mere hairsbreadth from Homura's head. The girl fluidly avoids the attack and bounces forward on her ribbons, scooping Homura right into her arms. Homura gasps, flailing. More explosions follow, tearing up the landscape behind them as the girl bobs to a place she must deem safe. She sets Homura down behind the cover of a thick rope of vines. 

"Hang on," she tells her. 

A cluster of sparkles materializes a sniper rifle in her grasp. She drops low and blasts back at something Homura can only assume is the witch. The creature is malformed and monstrous, several limbs rimmed by large bubbles. She shoots, blasting the thing back with impressive force. An inverted pyramid emerges from its form and Homura sees other magical girls come tearing out of the cover of colorful vines. They surround the thing, shouting words Homura can't distinguish. 

"My friends are going to seal that vertex," the girl says as she glances back to Homura. "We'll be safe now." 

"Vertex?" Homura echoes in bafflement. "That wasn't a witch?" 

The girl gets upright with her ribbons and shakes her head. "What's a witch?"

Homura shudders and pulls her knees up to her chest. "I don't know what's going on here. I don't know where I am." 

"The Jukai," the girl explains. She appears confused but her voice is level and calm. "I know it's scary but my friends and I are members of the Hero Club. We're here to protect the world and help anyone who needs it, so we'll help you too." 

Homura registers the information absently, unnerved. She runs shaking hands through her hair and clenches her fists until her scalp hurts. How did she get here? Where is Madoka? What's happening to Madoka right now?

The world dissipates with the release of hot air and a flurry of petals. The next thing Homura knows, she's on the roof of a building she doesn't recognize with five girls in school uniforms staring at her openly. One of them is the girl who defined that strange not-labyrinth as a Jukai. She's in a wheelchair and frowning uncertainly. 

"Who are you?" demands a girl with ashen brown hair pulled back into pigtails. "The Taisha would've told me if they were sending another hero." 

"Karin, stop," sternly says an older, blonde girl with an eyepatch. "She's obviously freaking out." The girl crouches beside Homura and puts a hand on her shoulder. 

Homura doesn't remember the last time she's received a kind touch from anyone other Madoka. Maybe it was Kyouko of all people, Kyouko about ten time-jumps ago. At some point or another she wiped some curry off Homura's face with her shirt. She hadn't asked permission and Homura had been annoyed more than anything, but it was the first time a variation had occurred with Kyouko in awhile. It hadn't happened since.

The blonde girl's touch is meant to reassure her, Homura senses. But it just makes her uncomfortable and all the more vulnerable in this environment she doesn't recognize. 

"What is today's date?" She asks in a croak. Walpurgisnacht could be attacking right now for all she knows. Madoka might be writhing with pain or cradling a blackened soul gem. 

The blonde tells her the date and Homura just about has a heart attack. Forget the right month, it's not the right year. If Walpurgisnacht miraculously ceased to exist, Madoka would still be dead because humans don't live for three hundred years. Homura's lungs shrivel inside of her chest while her heartbeat speeds to a painful velocity. Her ribs feel tight enough to crack and she can't catch her breath. 

"Whoa, whoa, hey!" The blonde stammers. "Calm down!" 

A scream ballons inside Homura but her throat can't support it and it stumbles off her lips between ragged, rapid pants as a feeble wail. How did this happen!? Where's Kyuubey? For the first time ever, Homura wants the incubator here. She wants him to show up and get her out of this no matter what price she has to pay. 

"Let's take her to the nurse's office," suggests the girl with sea-green eyes. 

Homura barely discerns the words over the internal storm of hysteria raging through her body. Suddenly there's arms under her, someone lifts her bridal style. It's the redheaded girl with the pink clip in her bangs. Homura wants to hit her but she can't summon the strength. She curls rigid in the girl's arms, fixed like a fetal mannequin as she hyperventilates. 

She's dimly aware of the activity around her. Of these girls rushing her inside this building that is apparently a school. The redhead places her on a thin scratchy cot in a nurse's office reminiscent of the one at Mitakihara. She still can't breathe. The air feels like cotton and despair sinks its teeth into her, throttling her heart like a dog with a dead animal. 

If Homura still had her soul gem, this would be the killing blow. It would be as black as a lump of coal. This is her last thought before she passes out. 

* * *

 Homura awakens an indeterminate amount of time later. There's a cool compress on her forehead. She's still in her magical girl outfit and she cannot begin to conceive why. 

"How are you feeling?" 

Homura glances to see the sea-eyed girl from earlier at her bedside. She's in her wheelchair, a lunchbox on her lap. Homura draws breath to answer and a tear slips free, rolling down her cheek. 

"I'm not supposed to be here," she whispers, more tears following as her eyes mist over. 

The girl purses her lips and produces a handkerchief from a pocket in her chair. She holds it out to Homura. Homura takes it, clenches it in her fist. The sobs are already hiccuping out of her. The girl wheels bad to give her some space and looks out the window. 

Homura sobs and sobs until her throat is gummy. She sobs until mucus pools in her upper lip and she feels lightheaded from breathing so hard. Everything she fought for...Every time-loop she endured...Every wretched end to Madoka's life...None of it had amounted to anything. She couldn't save Madoka. She has nothing left, lost in a place that's left her own behind by centuries. She sobs until she exhausts her supply of tears. 

The girl patiently watches out the window all the while and only turns back when she's heard Homura quiet. 

"Where are you supposed to be?" 

"Protecting my best friend," she admits tiredly. 

"What happened to her? What happened to you?" The girl fixes her with an imploring look.

Homura just shakes her head. "The truth is I don't know..." 

"What you're wearing looks a little like what we wear when we transform. Are you a hero from another district? Although you didn't know what the vertex was..." 

"I'm not from this time at at all," Homura sighs. She might as well tell the truth. It's all she has left. 

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," the girl says. "But I know there's something fishy going on here. We found you in the Jukai and that really says a lot. Only heroes are supposed to be able to enter. I haven't trusted the Taisha for awhile now. Are they the ones who hurt you?" 

"The Taisha?" Homura repeats. "No, I...When I say I'm not from your time, I...Well, you won't believe me. I'll tell you anyway because I have nothing to lose anymore. I'm a time-traveler. It's the ability I was granted when I contracted to be a puella magi. Something must have went wrong because I'm only meant to go back one month. Instead, I've jumped more than three hundred years forward." She sags with weariness. 

The girl is quiet for a moment. When she does speak, her voice is somber. 

"What's your name?" 

"Akemi Homura." 

"I'm Tougou Mimori." Tougou bows her head. "I believe you're telling the truth. You're too distraught to be lying to me." 

Homura wouldn't have particularly cared if this g— Tougou believed her or not. 

"There's a slim chance someone I know might be able to help you," Tougou tells her, her brows pinched with severity. "I'll take you to her but don't get your hopes up." 

Homura jounces right out of the cot, mouth gone dry. 

"I know what it's like to want to protect your friends," says Tougou. "I know how awful it is when you can't." 

* * *

 The hospital room looks more like a shrine. A tamagushi sits on a table. Various prayers decorate a wall. Masked leer after them silently and at the center of it all is this robed, bandaged girl who can't be much older than Homura herself. 

"Welcome, Wasshi," she greets Tougou warmly. 

"Sonoko." Tougou wheels to her bedside and Homura follows. "This is Akemi-san. I found her in the Jukai and she says she's from another time. Do you know about any of this?" 

Sonoko, apparently, can't move her head to nod, but she seems to convey the gesture with her eyes. She shifts them to Homura and offers a sad smile. 

"I'm not really a god. But being this close to the Shinju-sama gives me a heightened awareness." She sighs out heavily and looks just as jaded as Homura feels. "I can explain what happened to you, Akemi-san, but I can't send you back. You're not just from the past, you're from the past in another world altogether. I don't have that kind of power." 

Homura recalls the unintentional wish hooked out of her when she encountered her past self.

'I wish I didn't live in this world where I'm too helpless to do anything but watch her die!'

This wasn't a cosmic faux pas. She brought herself here without even realizing it, her agony exploited by some alien's fucked up system. Tougou warned her not to get her hopes up. Homura has no hopes left. She feels like a prison in this world, locked away from the rest of the life she was supposed to have. This is it, the final straw that breaks her back. 

"Kill me," she pleas feebly, directing it to whichever of them will heed it. "Please. I can't live like this..." 

This agitates the masked worshippers. They all stand up tall and loom, the threat potent in the air. Sonoko glowers sharply until they back off and then looks to Tougou. 

"Is it okay if I send Akemi-san home with you, Wasshi?" she asks, ignoring Homura entirely. 

"Yes." Tougou answers Sonoko but her gaze is glued to Homura. "I want to talk to her."

She reaches out and dauntlessly takes Homura's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Homura wants to hit her like she wanted to hit that redhead. She wants to slap her, punch her, scratch her brazen hand like a cat until it bleeds. Yet...all she can bring herself to do is cling to it as the room fades away. Her stomach does a somersault.

Then they're in a bedroom, presumably Tougou's. Definitely Tougou's, it's disability accessible. Tougou still hasn't let go of Homura's hand. Homura sinks to her knees and urgently grips that hand in both of her own, using it as an anchor when she sobs for the second time today. Tougou's free hand combs through her hair, the impersonality of acquaintances dropped in the face of who knows what. 

* * *

 "What's a puella magi?" Tougou asks in the wee hours of the morning, the sun not yet up but the promise of its rise in the paling of the sky. 

Homura is on a guest futon on the floor, dressed in Tougou's pajamas. She was introduced to Tougou's mother and aid as a friend from another school. Neither of them have slept a wink in the hours since.

"Supposedly another kind of hero," Homura mutters. "We have powers we use to protect people, but that part is mostly a sham. What was that thing you shot at? A vertex?" 

"Yeah." 

"A puella magi's purpose was supposedly to protect people from these monsters called witches. Witches seem like your vertexes." Homura tips her head to the side and looks at Tougou with eyes so tired they burn. "I would've become one eventually. Every magical girl ends up a witch if they don't die first. I guess being a witch is worse than dying, because your humanity expires and this wretched thing is all that's left in the aftermath." 

Tougou shudders. "Is that what you were trying to protect your friend from?" 

"I wanted to protect her from everything." A knot forms in Homura's throat. 

"I meant it when I said I know what that's like," Tougou says, voice as soft and caustic as ashes. "My friends and I aren't really in a good place right now. If you hadn't showed up to give us a distraction, we might've been at each other's throat." 

Homura tilts her head. "Oh?" 

"I want to protect them from the inevitability of becoming like Sonoko." Tougou grips the corner of the pillow and clenches her fist. "When we fight the vertexes, we use the power of the gods. To grant us an upgrade of our power, mankai, the Shinju-sama takes a sacrifice. Each time. I've lost the use of my legs, the hearing in my left ear, and two years worth of my memories. Yuna can't taste anymore, Itsuki can't speak, and Fuu is blind in one eye." 

"Trying to protect people comes at a cost here too," Homura summarizes with a cynical edge. "I guess that's something that might be the same in every world." 

"We didn't know," Tougou continues. "The Taisha didn't warn us at all." 

"Neither did Kyuubey." 

"I can handle the loss of my legs, Akemi-san. Sometimes it's frustrating but I've learned how to navigate in my wheelchair and even how to swim like this. My friends always include me and they're always here for me." Tougou sucks in a breath. "My friends...I can't bear the thought of not being able to remember any of them...It's already happened once." 

It has been a long, long time since Homura has cared about anything other than saving Madoka. Eons ago, practically. Madoka had always been her primary objective, but in the beginning she still put something of an effort in to warn the other puella magi about Kyuubey. She'd initially tried to save as many people as she could along the way. But over and over, time and time again, failure after failure. The endless cycle burned her out. 

Saving Madoka had become the only thing she could afford to care about, lest she care about everything and succumb to despair before she could do any good at all. 

Homura can't exactly say she cares about Tougou's problems. But she can't deny the tug of sympathy she feels nor the way she can relate. She hasn't forgotten the way it felt when Tougou leaned over to hug her while she cried again. 

"You forgot someone?" she asks softly. 

"Minowa Gin," Tougou laments. "She was one of my precious friends. I don't remember how she looked or the way she laughed and I only know about her at all because Sonoko told me. She died for me, Akemi-san. She gave her life so myself and Sonoko could be saved from the vertexes, and I don't even remember why she would care that much." 

"I know what it's like to be the forgotten one," Homura says, voice cracking as an old wound reopens raw. "My best friend forgot me every time I reset the month she died." 

"Oh, Akemi-san." Tougou's eyes waver and a tear slips free. 

Homura swallows, throat tied in a painful knot. Madoka was the last person to cry for her. All is silent for a few moments and then Tougou sits in bed, brushing some of the midnight black hair from her face. 

"I know how to end the world," Tougou whispers gravely. "If you still want to die, you might not have to wait much longer. Fuu and I are enraged with the Taisha. I don't know what her thoughts are but part of me believes it would be better to die as ourselves rather than without our memories or put in Sonoko's position. Yuna and the others have convinced me we would have protected the world even if we knew about mankai. We promised we'll be together no matter what we face. So for now, I'll hold off...But if Yuna forgets me or if I forget her, I'm going to lead the vertexes right to the Shinju-sama." 

"I misjudged you, Tougou-san," Homura murmurs. "Death appeals. I feel like I deserve to die for failing so spectacularly. I won't add to your burden by offing myself under your roof though." 

"I appreciate that. I realize we hardly know each other but I can't help feeling like I understand you, Akemi-san." Tougou gives Homura a beaten, crushed kind of smile.

Homura startles herself by finding it somewhere in her soul to smile back. "Likewise." 


	2. Chapter 2

Homura supposes the best way to explain life afterwards is an adjustment. This world isn't terribly unlike her world but even in the face of similar concepts, it is still another world entirely. 

Time is another thing she has to adjust to. It actually passes around her and there isn't a thing she can do about it. She can't freeze it, she can't reset anything. She sleeps in Tougou's room each night and each morning wakes up to a day she's never experienced before. She cannot predict any sequence of events and each day even the most mundane thing is a surprise simply because it's a mundane thing she could not foresee by being from the future. 

She isn't from the future anymore. This is the future beyond her future and she is from the past of someplace else. She never stops mourning Madoka and what she couldn't accomplish. Wondering how things turned out when she wasn't there and knowing anyway and hating herself for envisioning each macabre conclusion. Suicide is a lingering inclination. 

Still, she holds off and keeps her word. Tougou might end the world yet. It's been two weeks and they've only had to fight once in that timeframe. Apparently no one had had to use mankai but Fuu's gauge increased. Homura supposes if it takes too long, she'll leave a note and meet a private end. She hasn't come to that point yet though, she...

It would be a lie to say that Homura likes it here. Happy is far from an appropriate word to describe how she feels. 

But these girls are kind to her. All of them. They're eager to accept her into their little group, especially that Yuna. Yuna's eyes sparkled as she pushed the Hero Club application form on Homura, rather reminding Homura of an excitable dog. And Itsuki brought her a pudding. 

Itsuki reminds Homura of Madoka in a way. Timid and sweet, cheeks rosy and smiles warm. Homura's caught herself staring on a few different occasions. She makes herself avert her eyes before Fuu notices. 

It doesn't escape Tougou's attention though. 

One night when Tougou's already settled in and Homura is getting there, she asks. 

"How come you were looking at Itsuki like that?" 

"Like what?" Homura stalls. 

"In the club room, today. You were just staring at her." 

Homura sits at Touguo's desk, facing away and sighing out until her breath fogs on Tougou's mirror. When it cools Tougou's still looking at her, head tilted just so. 

"She's familiar to me," Homura says. "A bit, anyway. Like Madoka." 

"Do you want to talk about Madoka?" 

Homura draws a slow breath and shakes her head. 

"Okay. Is...Is anyone else familiar to you?" 

"Karin," Homura murmurs. Karin brings echoes of Kyouko with her coarse speech and her fiery attitude. But she isn't nearly as bitter or broken. "Karin's a little like a puella magi I used to know." 

"Do I ever remind you of anyone?" Tougou asks, brows pinched and a trace of hesitation in her voice. 

Homura turns in the chair to face her fully. 

"Yes. You remind me of someone I used to be." 

Tougou's breath hitches. "Akemi-san..." 

"You could call me Homura, if it's all the same to you." 

"I will then." Tougou tents her fingers. "You can call me Mimori when we're in private like this. Yuna can't know." 

"You care for her, don't you?" Homura's been paying just as close attention to Tougou as Tougou has to her, and the way she looks at Yuna says a lot. 

"She's my best friend." Pink creeps into Tougou's cheeks.

"You're in love with her," Homura declares, not unkind.

Tougou gasps and hides her face in her hands, thoroughly flustered. Homura smirks.  

 "I'll keep it a secret, Mimori," she promises. 

* * *

It's been just over a month since Homura's arrival.  Every day everything becomes more familiar. Every day something new rings like the past, like it isn't actually new at all. 

Homura is rather expecting it the day Fuu pulls her aside while the rest of the Hero Club goes about organizing a fundraiser for the girls' basketball team. They go into the empty hallway and for a few moments Fuu just stares grimly, her jaw clenched and shoulders tensed. Homura knows what's coming next and she feels a twinge of something like compassion. It isn't that strong but Fuu is kind to her, really, for getting so worked up about it. 

"Yes, senpai?" 

"The Taisha says you have a strong hero aptitude," says Fuu. "They want you to fight the vertex with us. This is yours."

She slips a cell phone out of her pocket, the same model as the other girls have. Homura takes it, blinking at the screen. It doesn't bother her. Hero, magical girl, it's basically the same in the end. Homura is familiar with fighting. Perhaps this is even a positive development. The system is always rigged no matter what world you pick and hero aptitude sounds a lot like magical girl potential.

As much as she hates herself for it, sometimes Homura wants to forget. Forget Madoka. Forget the way she failed to save her. Sometimes it's too painful to remember. If she goes mankai and her memories melt away, she'll be losing less than Mimori. Those are selfish thoughts, yes, but Homura's been allowing herself to indulge lately. It's almost like her memories are fake in this world where Madoka never existed anyway. 

"I'll be a good asset to you." Homura dips her head. 

Fuu makes a face, her visible eye glinting with conflict. "I know you know what it's like. I'm sorry. This isn't something I want to ask you to do, but..." 

"I know." Homura raises her head and runs her hands through her hair. "It's alright with me. I'd like to do what I can to protect you anyway. You're all the closest to friends I have." 

Fuu blinks, startled. Then her cheeks puff out and she slouches into Homura's space, brazenly poking her in the forehead. 

"We _are_ your friends, Akemi." 

"That's a nice thought." 

"I mean it, Akemi. We're friends." Fuu plants her hands on her hips and crowds Homura even more, so they're just about nose to nose. "You're as gloomy as a rain cloud but we still like you. We like _Karin_ for goodness sake, why the heck wouldn't we like you?" 

Homura feels a thrum of warmth. She'd give anything not to be here but it's nice to be accepted by someone. She puts the Taisha issued phone away and nods. 

"We'd better go help them with the fundraiser." 

Fuu smirks, looping her arm around Homura's shoulders as she steers her inside. 

* * *

 

Two days after Homura receives her terminal, the vertex attack. Time freezes just like way it used to freeze at Homura's command and the Jukai sucks them in. 

Homura transforms in unison with the others. The sensation is nearly identical to the way transforming was before. Energy explodes inside Homura like fireworks. Light gets its grip on her and peels her open as her clothes shimmer into a mystic uniform. It's reminiscent of the other girl's outfits, an ensemble of violet and white. A sporty dress of a sort fits her like a glove, overlaid with wide, ribbon like flaps. Gloves to the elbows protect her hands, low-heeled boots to the thigh performing the same function. 

Her hair brightens to a much paler mauve. 

"Ah! You look so cool, Akemi-san!" Yuna cheers. "And look at your faerie! It's so cute!" 

Homura glances up to the small being hovering at her side. It's wooly and round, like a sheep with a squished face and big sparkly eyes. It's dark wings are oddly birdlike and don't appear big enough to support its plump body. Homura holds her arm out and flicks her wrist, weapon manifesting in her grasp in a sprinkle of sparkles. 

It's a crossbow. A rather impressive crossbow with five arrows in the barrel. 

"So you're long range like Tougou," states Fuu. "Collaborate with her while me and Yuna attack it head on. Itsuki, Karin, come with us to provide backup." 

Nodding in tandem, they leap to their positions. The vertex today is this wretched, circular fiend with gnashing teeth in blue gums. Its color scheme and hellish grin bring back the ghosts of Walpurgisnacht. Homura springs away from Tougou and shoots in the heat of the moment, every grain of hate in her soul channeled into that pull of her finger. The arrows spiral into the vertex's eyeless face, detonating on impact. 

The creature tilts and Yuna charges in to deliver a punch that would put Superman to shame. Homura lands nimbly, trembling and cold. Her faerie bobs up in the air. 

"That was a little reckless," Tougou says in a tone that doesn't quite scold, adjusting her scope. 

"I want it to die," Homura hisses. New arrows manifest to replace the ones she'd shot. 

Tougou regards her with concern before refocusing on her own heroics. She pulls the trigger of her sniper rifle and the recoil jerks all the way down to her numb little toes. The vertex rocks back, chunks of it blown away. It doesn't bleed, it almost seems like some kind of morphing plastic. Its hideous mouth opens wide and a  bright, fluorescent orb appears. Fuu waves for the girls on the frontline to get back while Tougou takes another shot. The creature ducks the hit and Homura narrows her eyes. 

The orb in its mouth pulses and erupts, an offensive volley of light fired out. Yuna lets out a yelp as she's blasted back. Fuu grounds, guarding herself and Karin with the impossibly wide blade of her sword. Itsuki is still in the line of fire. Suddenly Itsuki's resemblance to Madoka is so overpowering Homura truly is fighting Walpurgisnacht all over again. 

She propels herself down there, running at top speed and jumping like a flea from each arch of twisted roots. Itsuki's faerie strains. Its forcefield quivers with each strike and the blasts just keep coming. Homura tackles her to the ground as the next barrage is so strong the forcefield shrinks entirely. Itsuki gives a voiceless gasp and Homura feels the vibration as her own faerie covers them. Homura grits her teeth, vision wavering. 

For a moment blonde hair seems cotton candy pink, not-green eyes suddenly just a shade darker. Then Itsuki touches Homura's shoulder and she really is Itsuki again. Homura helps her up and thrusts her into Fuu's arms while the vertex's power is repleting. 

"Akemi-san!" Yuna yells as she rushes out from her own cover. She reaches out for Homura just to get blasted away with the vertex's next pointed strike. 

"Yuna!" Tougou shrieks in a panic. She rises on her ribbons and dispels the sniper rifle. 

Homura feels the vibrations growing stronger as her faerie weakens beneath the brunt of another blow. She looks up the the vertex, rather feeling like a worm beholding a bird. Her time stopping ability would be useful here. She knows the faerie won't let her die, can't let her die. But it's going to hurt if she gets hit, going by how Yuna looks. The girl is scratched up and sprawled, outfit dirtied and ripped in places. A bruise seems to be forming over her eye, but she elbows herself up and starts crawling for Homura. 

"Akemi-san," she pants. "You can I can double-team it. You can jump off my back and shoot for its head, then I'll—" 

An even bigger explosion cuts her off. They jerk their heads up to look as Tougou descends from the air, twin pistols in her hand. Her hair flares out behind her like a cape, her eyes narrow with determination. She hit the bullseye, shot it right in the mouth as it was powering up. This is the last look of Tougou Homura sees before the brightest of lights eclipses the Jukai. 

The Jukai dissolves after that, pastel petals dispersing. Homura regains herself on the roof and hurries with the others to crowd around Tougou's wheelchair. 

"Tougou!" Yuna yelps, shaking the girl by the shoulders. "Say something." 

Tougou is visibly spent, pale and scratched where she leans heavily sideways in her chair. 

"That definitely filled up my gauge," she murmurs. It sounds like an observation more than a lament. "Next time, I'm sure I'll go mankai." 

* * *

 "Fuu thanked me for protecting Itsuki," Homura tells Tougou later, the both of them on Tougou's bed as the stars twinkle outside. 

"You didn't feel like it was Itsuki you were protecting," Tougou concludes. 

Homura shakes her head. 

"Other than that, how was your first battle?" 

"You know it wasn't my first, Mimori." Homura purses her lips. 

"You're right. I should've specified vertex battle. You seemed to get a handle on things pretty fast." 

Homura nods. "I've faced worse." 

"I noticed something interesting about your outfit," Tougou says. "Your flower is a red spider lily. The rest us have flowers that match our color scheme." 

"I don't know why it's like that." Homura had noticed too. 

"I wouldn't expect you to." Tougou smiles a bit. "Homura, tell me something. Even if it hurts." 

"Yes?" And Homura thinks she knows what's coming, just like how she knew what Fuu was going to say about the Taisha. 

"Did you love Madoka? The way you know I love Yuna." 

"Yes." Homura lies on her side next to Tougou, pain clenching her chest as she buries her face into the pillow. 

Homura feels the gentle stroke of Tougou's hand along her back. Tougou rolls her wrist in little circles and rubs up and down, up and down. Homura breathes tired tears into the pillow and slowly stills under her touch. Tougou's hand comes to a rest on her shoulder. 

"I'm positive I'll go mankai next time," she says. "I wrote myself a note in case I forget, so I'll know what I have to do."

Homura lifts her head just enough so her words aren't muffled in the pillow. "Why did you want to know about my feelings, Mimori?" 

"You can't be with Madoka," Tougou murmurs. "And I'll never be with Yuna. But I wouldn't mind being with you, Homura." 

Homura sits up. She swipes her tongue over her lips and takes note of the room. Weeks ago she'd be on the floor, in her own futon. Now she's on Tougou's bed. Tougou hasn't let go of her shoulder. Tougou is no replace for the love of her life, but...But Homura understands her. Things may be coming to an end any day now, a true end. Not the kind Homura can try to rewrite by tweaking the clock. 

"You can pretend I'm Madoka," Tougou whispers. 

Homura rests her hand against Tougou's cheek and Tougou nestles her face into the touch like it's something she's been waiting for. Homura leans in close and shakes her head, lips a breath from Tougou's. Tougou closes the gap and kisses her softly at first, sliding in the tongue only when Homura responds. Pretend she's Madoka? 

Never. She's too Tougou for that. She tastes like botamochi and smells like green tea. Her breasts are heavy and soft, squishing into Homura's own as she gets closer. Homura watches her close her eyes and indulge in the release, idly wondering just what she is to Tougou. What Tougou is to her. She finds Tougou's hand and weaves their fingers together, breaking the kiss just to breathe against her neck. 

"Were you thinking of Yuna?" 

"I tried," Tougou admits. 

"I don't mind if that happens again," Homura hums. 

Tougou puts her hands on Homura's waist and skims her lips over Homura's, another cursory endeavor. Homura kisses her back, kisses her harder. Tonight, she decides as Tougou's hands gently squeeze, she'll remain in the bed and she won't return to the guest futon at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may eventually return to this, but probably not. It was more of an experiment in crossovers than anything.


End file.
